Yellow Zinnia after I dipped the ends of the petals in
a bright orange finger paint that I keep around for such occasions.
Painting the tips of all the petals is very time consuming,
but it is well worth the effort -- at least I think it is.
If you want to have colorful flowers, you have to work at it.

This image just elicits all sorts of strange sci-fi thoughts in me.
But then, I pretty much always have strange sci-fi thoughts and I
would be happy to share them but I don't want to frighten anyone.
Its pretty well known to myself that I can predict the future and it's a little bit scary
(fair warning).

I know that some people will find this hard to believe but
these little butterflies like me so much that whenever I take my camera to the garden,
they flutter all around me begging to have their picture taken.
You can't refuse because they are cute as a button.
The other day I counted the number of pictures I have taken of these guys and it is over a million now.

Hummingbird Clearwing Moth feeding on
Lavender with a white silk Chinese lantern hanging in the background.

I know this might seem kind of strange,
but I feel this moth may actually have come to our garden from China.
Like it was caught up in the jet stream and swept all the way to Missouri
where it spied this white silk lantern in a garden of Lavender and thought it
had gone all the way around the world and arrived back home again in China.
Stranger things have happened.

- Zebra Swallowtail -
A butterfly that we haven't seen in our garden before.
It likes the native butterfly weed.
This was taken in the evening when the light was beginning to fail
and I am happy it turned out.
The butterfly's wings never stopped fluttering
so you can see the motion at the wing tips.